Movies like The Illuminated (2007)
The best movies like The Illuminated (2007) are The Public Woman (1984), La Vie en Rose (2007) and Nouvelle Vague (2025). If The Illuminated hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedCléo from 5 to 7 (1962)7.7/10 from 823 votes
- NewestForsaken (2026)Released 2026
- In FrenchThe Public Woman (1984)Also in French
The Public Woman (1984)
An inexperienced young actress is invited to play a role in a film based on Dostoyevsky's 'The Possessed'. The film director, a Czech immigrant in Paris, takes over her life, and in a short time she is unable to draw the line between acting and reality. She winds up playing a real-life role posing as the dead wife of another Czech immigrant, who is manipulated by the filmmaker into commiting a political assassination.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa Vie en Rose (2007)
From the mean streets of the Belleville district of Paris to the dazzling limelight of New York's most famous concert halls, Edith Piaf's life was a constant battle to sing and survive, to live and love. Raised in her grandmother's brothel, Piaf was discovered in 1935 by nightclub owner Louis Leplee, who persuaded her to sing despite her extreme nervousness. Piaf became one of France's immortal icons, her voice one of the indelible signatures of the 20th century.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNouvelle Vague (2025)
After writing for Cahiers du cinéma, young Godard decides making films is the best film criticism. He gets Beauregard to fund a low-budget feature, creating a treatment with Truffaut about a gangster couple.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisParis Je T'aime (2006)
Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to choose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMr. Morgan's Last Love (2013)
A widowed professor living in Paris develops a special relationship with a younger French woman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Braid (2023)
India. Smita is an untouchable. She dreams of seeing her daughter escape her miserable condition and enter school. Italy. Giulia works in her father’s workshop. When he has an accident, she discovers that the family business is ruined. Canada. Sarah, a successful lawyer, is about to be promoted to the head of her firm when she learns that she is ill. Three lives, three women, three continents. Three battles to fight. Although they don’t know each other, Smita, Giulia and Sarah are unknowingly linked by their most intimate and singular bond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Mad Women's Ball (2021)
A woman who is unfairly institutionalized at a Paris asylum plots to escape with the help of one of its nurses. Based on the novel 'Le bal des folles' by Victoria Mas.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisForsaken (2026)
Everyone knows the name of Samuel Paty, but few people really know his story. On October 16, 2020, Samuel Paty, professor of History-Geography, was murdered at the end of his college. In the light of investigations and trials, this film looks back on his last eleven days, and the gear that led to his tragic death.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLola (1961)
A bored young man meets with his former girlfriend, now a cabaret dancer and single mother, and soon finds himself falling back in love with her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCléo from 5 to 7 (1962)
Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLove (2015)
Murphy is an American living in Paris who enters a highly sexually and emotionally charged relationship with the unstable Electra. Unaware of the seismic effect it will have on their relationship, they invite their pretty neighbor into their bed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFunny Face (1957)
A shy Greenwich Village book clerk is discovered by a fashion photographer and whisked off to Paris where she becomes a reluctant model.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDalida (2017)
Based on the true story of acclaimed music icon "Dalida" born in Cairo, who gained celebrity in the 50s, singing in French, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, German, Italian, playing in awarded Youssef Chahine's picture "Le Sixième Jour", and who later committed suicide in 1987 in Paris, after selling more than 130 million records worldwide.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa Chinoise (1967)
A small group of French students are studying Mao, trying to find out their position in the world and how to change the world to a Maoistic community using terrorism.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNo Chains, No Masters (2024)
1759, Mauritius Island, Indian Ocean. The island is controlled by French settlers and the deported slave population live in fear while toiling in the sugar cane plantations. Unlike her disillusioned father Massamba, 16-year-old Mati refuses to keep her head down and accept her fate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLux Æterna (2020)
Charlotte Gainsbourg agrees to play a witch condemned to be burned at the stake in the first film directed by Béatrice Dalle. But the chaotic production, technical problems, and psychotic breakdowns gradually plunge the shoot into a chaos of pure light.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Monster in Paris (2011)
Paris, 1910. Emile, a shy movie projectionist, and Raoul, a colourful inventor, find themselves embarked on the hunt for a monster terrorizing citizens. They join forces with Lucille, the big-hearted star of the Bird of Paradise cabaret, an eccentric scientist and his irascible monkey to save the monster, who turns out to be an oversized but harmless flea, from the city's ruthlessly ambitious police chief.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa Cérémonie (1995)
Sophie, a quiet and shy maid working for an upper-class French family, finds a friend in the energetic and uncompromising postmaster Jeanne, who encourages her to stand up against her bourgeois employers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIrma Vep (1996)
A has-been French filmmaker wants a Hong Kong actress to be the heroine in a rendering of Les Vampires.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dreamers (2003)
When Isabelle and Theo invite Matthew to stay with them, what begins as a casual friendship ripens into a sensual voyage of discovery and desire in which nothing is off limits and everything is possible.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Illuminated?
The closest matches to The Illuminated are The Public Woman (1984), La Vie en Rose (2007) and Nouvelle Vague (2025). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Illuminated?
Start with The Public Woman (1984), the closest match to The Illuminated.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Illuminated?
Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), rated 7.7/10 by 823 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Illuminated?
Forsaken (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like The Illuminated?
Yes: The Public Woman (1984), La Vie en Rose (2007) and Nouvelle Vague (2025).
How are movies similar to The Illuminated chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Illuminated, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.